Yogi Berra and his fun little malopropisms: Is it all schtick; is he a reasonably intelligent person who just sometimes loses his battles with the English language; or is he really not all that bright?
Acdcording to Yogi, “I never said half the things I said.”
Berra was bright, at least as ballplayers go. He was certainly a smart, alert baseball player. People remember him for his malapropisms, but sometimes forget that he might well have been the greatest catcher in the history of the major leagues and played on more World Series winners than any other person. The pitching staffs he guided to those championships were often short of top flight talent, too. I have difficulty believing a dumbass could
He just gets his English a little mangled.
And apparently, so do I.
Yogi Berra had a bit of trouble with the occasional malaprop, but it’s generally conceded that most of his reputation was made up by his childhood buddy, former ballplayer and sportscaster Joe Garagiola.
Berra was smart enough to get hired as a manager three times and take two different clubs to the World series.
Not long ago I read a little book supposedly written by The Yog.
It has the suspicious byline “with Dave Kaplan” leading one to think that WHEN YOU COME TO A FORK
IN THE ROAD, TAKE IT! may be as much not Yogi as Yogi. It’s a fun read and leaves the impression that a lot of Yogi’s thing is schtick.
I checked this out of the library, not wanting that much of Yogi’s wisdom.
When Garagiola was on the NBC Today Show he was asked if he was the best ballplayer in town when he was a boy. He answered, “I wasn’t even the best ballplayer on my block.”
He and Berra were near neighbors.
Well, for whatever reason, Berra was not taken particularly seriously as a player during much of his career:
Baseball writer Stan Isaacs once wanted to start a completely bogus trade rumor after the 1960 world series, so he concocted the story that the Yankees were planning to trade Berra to San Francisco. In order to make this seem logical, he said that SF wanted to make Berra their manager, an idea chosen because it seemed so absurd on the face of it. Isaacs later wrote that the rumor was the reason why Berra was able to go into managing – no one had considered the possibility before the rumor.
Despite his record, Berra was not a particularly smart or even good manager. He won with the Yankees because the team still had the talent that had won four times in the previous four years (and Phil Linz deserves the credit), and with the Mets because no one else in the NL East had a record over .500 (The previous year, the Mets had won more game and finished a distant third). He got along well with players, and was certainly adequate, but he was a manager mostly because he was a hero in NY baseball, not because he was shown to be a better than average manager.
So he wasn’t smarter than the average m-
No, I shouldn’t. As far as Berra’s reputation for malapropisms goes, in recent years he’s been very willing to cash in on it (and his public persona has revolved around them for much longer, I think). That’s just cemented the idea that he really said these things.
He may not have been taken seriously as a managerial candidate in 1960, but he certainly was taken seriously as a player. He won three MVP awards. He was a favorite of Casey Stengel.
As for Berra’s malapropisms, I believe he did say at least some of the things attributed to him. I also don’t think he’s dumb. Some of the things he said are rather clever, and could be the product of a sort of verbal wit from a guy who never cared whether people thought he was smart.
Here is a list of Yogi Berra quotes.
Yogi Berra definitely said many (and perhaps all?) of the malapropisms attributed to him. In a documentary on him which aired a couple of times on PBS, there’s a shot of Berra with his grown sons, who speak getting accustomed to jotting down the sayings over the years as they cropped up.
Disclaimer: I love and admire Yogi. I think he is a wonderful man and the greatest catcher baseball history. He is the greatest living Yankee to boot.
He is not stupid but he is under-educated. He quit school at 15.
He was a brilliant baseball man. Casey considered him the Jr. Manager.
He is smart in many other ways. He has made great investments over the years. He stood off George Steinbrenner until George very publically apologized to him for over an hour.
His investments in Bowling alleys, Land in Orlando that was sold to Disney for a huge profit, YooHoo and etc. have made him very wealthy.
His ability to market himself and his adventures with the English language are quite clever.
BTW: he did really say, "When you get to a fork in the road, take it.”
Berra says this is part of driving directions to his house in Montclair, New Jersey. There is a fork in the road, and whichever way you take, you will get to his house.
Jim
I had a chance to meet Yogi at a bookstore signing copies of this book. He was an absolutely nice guy, taking time to speak with the fans and all. My first impression when I saw him was: “This is a 3-time MVP Hall-of-Famer???” He’s kind of short, stocky, and looks like the guy selling produce at the market. But totally charming and comes across as someone you’d like to be friends with. And he didn’t say any Yogi-isms.
Is a fun read. You’ll stop laughing at Yogi after reading his account of being under fire in a landing craft in Normandy on D-Day, though. He also gives full credit to his wife’s business sense for their prosperity.
He wasn’t a bad manager, either. He took the Mets to the World Series once, too. What the job really takes is knowing baseball and a sense for handling people, which he has, not book learning.
A few years back, Yogi did some advertising for AMTRACK-His advice to travellers on AMTRACK trains “Pair up-in threes!”
I thought it was clever!